CHICAGO — It was not yet 9 a.m. Tuesday, but Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was moving fast through the labyrinth of delegate breakfasts at a hotel near the Democratic National Convention. First Tennessee, then Pennsylvania, a sprint downstairs for Wyoming and Montana, then back up to New Mexico and over to North Carolina. In less than two hours, she would speak to eight breakfasts covering 11 states while snapping hundreds of selfies in photo lines run by her staff with ruthless efficiency.
The quadrennial Democratic gathering can be where White House dreams get made, as Barack Obama showed in a 2004 speech that transformed him from an unknown Illinois state senator into a star. In Chicago this week, Whitmer set the pace for the Democrats’ bench of potential White House aspirants who found their ambitions frozen by President Joe Biden’s decision to terminate his reelection campaign and elevate Vice President Kamala Harris. It now may be four years — if not eight — before any of them reveal their true aspirations. But they were all here, hustling, mingling, striving — and practically tripping over one another in the process.
Former president Bill Clinton in his convention speech Wednesday described the presidential campaign as the “greatest job interview for the greatest job in the world.” The selfie lines this week, the get-to-know you speeches, the countless grab-and-grin meetings behind closed doors were all part of the less-glamorous courtship of party officials that is well underway to ensure that job interview happens.
Before Harris was coronated by Democrats as Biden’s successor, leaders like Whitmer, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy, Georgia Sen. Raphael G. Warnock and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker were informally known to some as the “Class of 2028.” It was a marker for the next presidential year when everyone had assumed Democrats would have an open primary. If Harris succeeds in winning in November, they could be the Class of 2032. But in Chicago they were taking it in stride, using their talents to pump up rank-and-file Democrats for Harris and ribbing former president Donald Trump, her Republican opponent.
The only safe play for all of them is being “the best, most hardworking surrogate you can possibly be. And if you’re from Pennsylvania, Michigan — deliver your state,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a former senior adviser to Obama.
Whitmer’s speech to Pennsylvania delegates Monday came just after that of Shapiro, who was among Harris’s top choices to be her running mate. At the breakfast held by the first-in-the-nation primary state of South Carolina, Whitmer literally crossed paths to the microphone with Warnock.
As Warnock looked on — perhaps sizing up his future competition — Whitmer rallied her “party of happy warriors” in shimmery platform Converse, dark rinse jeans and a pink plaid blazer pinned with a button that said “Wear pink, get s— done.”
“Hit the doors. Register voters. Eat a damn vegetable on occasion,” Whitmer ordered Tuesday morning. “When you get home on Friday, take a nap, and then roll up your sleeves and put on your chucks, and let’s do the work.”
Then she was back out the door as her chief of staff marshaled her selfie line into formation in the booming voice of a former teacher. “She’s going to come right behind you and get in every photo. Have your phone up and ready to go. Look like me,” JoAnne Huls said with an outstretched arm, pantomiming holding a cellphone camera high above her head. Whitmer darted down the line with a smile plastered to her face, popping her head into frame behind each shoulder. “Let’s go!” Huls shouted, keeping things moving. “We’re Detroiters. We make things. We make lines. We make photos. It’s an assembly line at its best!”
As Shapiro was about to take the stage at the “real freedom happy hour” he hosted at a Chicago art gallery Monday, former Obama strategist Jim Messina observed that for all the Democratic hopefuls, the next 70-something days offer an instance where hard work on behalf of the Harris-Walz ticket is not only “great politics for your political future” but “also the right thing to do.” But that alignment does not make the waiting game any less awkward.
Newsom — whose fate has been inextricably intertwined with Harris’s since the two began rising together in San Francisco political circles decades ago — maintained a notably low profile in Chicago after spending much of the year as one of Biden’s most visible surrogates.
As the California governor adjusts to a dramatically changed political landscape, this moment has echoes of a similar collision of ambitions in 2015, when a U.S. Senate seat opened for the first time in two decades. Harris ran; Newsom opted out and ultimately forged a different path to become governor. This week, he did not deliver a formal speech from the stage, opting for the more pedestrian role of awarding California’s votes to Harris from the convention floor during a ceremonial roll call of the 50 states.
“I know my status. … I’m Harris 2024, Harris 2028, Harris or bust,” Newsom said when asked about how her ascent has affected his own thinking about a White House run. “I’m all in. I’ve been on this train for a long time — from the Senate to everything else. It’s pretty simple.”
Shapiro also demurred on questions about his future while courting hundreds of delegates, donors and party influencers on the sun-splashed lawn of the gallery in Chicago’s West Loop. Guests took photos in front of a giant American flag elaborately constructed from Pennsylvania-themed cans of Utz potato chips and Heinz ketchup. There were hors d’oeuvres from every region of the country, including a quinoa salad with golden raisins, shrimp and grits, Chicago dogs and “mini Americana shortcake parfaits” in glass shooters with tiny spoons.
But Shapiro’s fans were on the hunt for convention swag that might turn into collectibles. Some guests asked how they could get the black enamel “48” lapel pins that aides were wearing as one attendee noted that they could denote a potential Shapiro run to be the 48th president of the United States. (Clearing up the confusion, Shapiro’s aides said the pins signify that he’s the 48th governor of the commonwealth).
“I know you’re not going to believe this, but I really don’t think about it,” Shapiro said in a brief interview outside the party when asked about his White House intentions. “I have always believed that if you do good work, if you put in the effort, if you show results for people, the politics tends to take care of itself.”
Shapiro’s party was posh, but it was no match for the extravagant affair thrown Tuesday by Pritzker, the billionaire Illinois governor and heir to the Hyatt hotel fortune who used his wealth and influence to convince party officials to let him host the convention in his home state.
He was one of the most visible figures in Chicago — sitting at the elbow of Hillary Clinton during her husband’s convention speech and throwing his gala for 8,000 people with at least a dozen open bar spaces, acrobats in lit-up costumes, at least four options for frozen cocktails and a performance by singer-songwriter John Legend.
Thursday morning, Pritzker was trying out a version of what could eventually become a presidential stump speech before the delegates of Nevada, a state that hosts one of the nation’s first primary contests. He acknowledged that his state’s voters were probably not “looking for a White, Ukrainian American who is a Jewish billionaire” when he first ran in 2017, but said he had used his years in office to champion the “fight for personal freedoms.”
In addition to ensuring the funding for the Democratic convention in Chicago, Pritzker has been building goodwill within his party by providing more than $2.5 million in financial backing, as well as strategic support, for ballot measures to codify abortion rights in Arizona, Florida, Nevada and Montana through his Think Big America nonprofit.
After he left the Nevada breakfast to chants of “JB! JB! JB!,” Lindsey Harmon, who is executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes Nevada, stood up to tell delegates how Pritzker had “stepped up in an unbelievable way” — prompting a fresh round of applause.
Pritzker wound down his hosting duties on the last afternoon of the convention by taking Moore, another rising star within the Democratic Party, to The Wieners Circle — a hot dog joint known for its salty language.
After ordering two char dogs, they shot content for their social media feeds and bantered about the stand’s “Trump Footlong” — a three-inch hot dog whose name mocked the former president’s penchant for exaggerations. Out back, Pritzker talked Moore into doing a shot of Malört, a Chicago liqueur that he has dubbed the unofficial drink of the convention.
“You’re tough, you were in the military. You’ve done this a lot,” Pritzker said Moore.
“Nah, I don’t know about that. The last time I did this in public, my wife kicked me out of the house,” Moore replied.
“No faces,” Pritzker said as they toasted to democracy.
When a reporter noted that the footage of them taking shots together might turn up in some future campaign where they were running against one another for the White House, Pritzker said that wasn’t going to happen: “If we were running for something, we’d be running together.” Pritzker said.
It was another possible combination for 2028 or 2032 ticket for Democrats to consider. But the two governors were done fielding this week’s hypothetical questions about their futures. There would be plenty of time to figure that out later.